Artful Vision | Elisia Lee

"NOW is the owner of the FUTURE." - Aniekee Tochukwu

She may have caught your attention with her quirky, pastel-coloured (but jarringly dark) illustrations on Instagram. Perhaps you have even worn shoes she designed. Hard-working and talented Montreal-based graphic designer and illustrator Elisia Lee has been feeding her portfolio with great projects for the past six years. Going against her father's will for her to stay away from the fashion industry, she tells me: "I'm really into fashion, I like doing embroideries and making my own clothes; I've always made my own clothes. [...] I like hitting up different forms of art."

A graphic design graduate, Lee currently works at The Mercer House -- a distribution company in Montreal serving brands such as Macbeth Footwear and Billionaire Boys Club -- but also wants to freelance more –- a shift that would give her additional creative freedom. "At The Mercer House, I do everything; anything from designing the piece, to the graphics on it, to yeah... everything." If she feels rewarded by seeing her designs come to life at her current job, she adds a rider to her feelings: "It's cool if you can put your spin and knowledge on something that already exists, but it's also hard to put yourself in a different mindset [switching from brand to brand]."

In the past six months, Lee's personal clientele has seen steady growth. "I promote myself a little bit, but I don't like overdoing it. Those little illustrations I've been putting up on Instagram is what's been getting me get more side work, so that's pretty cool." The biggest challenge now is to get her soon-to-be-released clothing line up and running while also doing freelance work for clients that come to her for her style and signature.

They say now is the owner of the future. And, with a clear vision of where she wants to be and what she wants to achieve, it is safe to say that the name Elisia Lee is one to remember. Her future is just about to shine right through her simultaneously delicate and tough atypical work.